Congress trains gun at Centre, says G20 revealed biggest failures of NDA Govt

Jairam Ramesh

The Congress party, training guns at the union government, said that the 18^th G20 summit with India's rotational presidency revealed the NDA government's "biggest failures". The party claimed an estimated 14 crore citizens are excluded from food entitlements as the National Democratic Alliance government failed to conduct the "decadal Census" which was due in 2021. The grand old party also termed the NDA as ‘No Data Available' as it claimed that every G20 country except India has managed to conduct the census, despite the pandemic.

Jairam Ramesh, Congress MP and General Secretary (Communications) said that not conducting a census is "an unprecedented failure" in the history of the nation. He, in a statement, said, "The start of the 18th G20 summit today with India's rotational presidency is a moment for reflection, revealing one of the biggest failures of the NDA (No Data Available) Government it has failed to conduct the decadal Census that was due in 2021. The Modi government is so inept and incompetent that it has been unable to carry out India's most important statistical exercise which has been conducted on schedule since 1951. This is an unprecedented failure in the history of our nation."

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The Congress MP's claim on 14 crore Indians being excluded from their food entitlements was based on a media report. Citing the report, he added, "This is a categorical denial of a fundamental right to the citizen guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution, which was implemented by the UPA government through the landmark National Food Security Act (NFSA). The Modi government was forced to rely on the NFSA as a critical lifeline for families across India, providing the much-needed safety net for the poorest during the Covid-19 pandemic."

Jairam Ramesh said that as per the NFSA, 67 per cent Indians are entitled to food entitlements and that pending census only 81 crore people based on the 2011 census are receiving benefits; while current estimates of the population hint that 95 crore Indians are entitled to NFSA coverage.

He said that people have been denied their rights for "at least two years" now. Ramesh then cited the July 2022 Supreme Court direction to the Modi government in which the top court asked the government to rectify the "untenable situation" using population projections. "But no change was made. This massive failure shows not only the Prime Minister's contempt for the Supreme Court, but his disdain for the Constitutional rights of the people of India," said the Congress leader.

"Not only has the Modi government failed to carry out the Census, but the Socio-Economic Caste Census that was conducted by the UPA government in 2011 remains suppressed. It has even opposed the Bihar government's attempt at a state-level Caste Census in the Supreme Court," he said in a statement adding that the Modi government has a pattern of discrediting, discarding or even discontinuing collecting any data it finds inconvenient to its narrative.

"The party demands the Modi government to increase the beneficiary quota till census, conduct updated national caste-census and to end suppression of data inconvenient to the government like 2017-18 NSS and the 2022-23 CES."